My name is Anna and I’m in Seville, Spain.
(And that would be a picture of me.–>
I was way to excited about sitting alone in a two person row on the plane. It was like a dream come true. It was like even the plane wanted me to be happy about leaving for Spain.)
I chose this program because I have had an obsession with Spain dating back to when I was in middle school. Why? You might ask. I have no idea. I heard a few stories about it and knew that it would have to be one of the first places that I traveled too. My plans for travel have expanded since 8th grade, but Spain remained at the top of the list.
Knowing I would eventually find myself in Spain, I studied Spanish my entire high school career and continued studying into college where I was talked into taking a Spanish minor. If you think 5 years of spanish leaves you at all prepared it doesn’t. The language is tricky because there’s a difference between how the professors speak Spanish and how everyone else actually speaks Spanish.
The language isn’t all the will surprise you. Forget stereotypes. They’re not helpful. Stereotypes seem all inclusive, when they are not. I only use them as general ideas and always expect to find outliers. This was the only way that they were helpful to me. The culture is half the reason I wanted to come to Spain. The culture is so different from the culture of the United States and it seemed more than worthy of a thorough, first-hand investigation. I want to understand what drives these different lifestyles. I want to see why certain stereotypes have developed and determine any kind of validity if any. There are wide varieties of people within every culture and interpretations are affected by a person’s cultural upbringing. My goal is to compare this culture to my own, not to see which is better or which is worse, but to recognize each for their own unique development.
I’m blogging to share the things that I’ll learn.
There is one thing that should be noted immediately: don’t judge a culture by the people you meet in an airport. That seems to be the place where the angry people of every nation gather so they can ruin everyone else’s day. And eight hour layovers seem to be a rather good way of killing any kind of excitement, so plan flights carefully. Or take a gameboy, an mp3, a book, and a dancing monkey because otherwise it will be the longest day ever!
My adventures/misadventures are soon to come. Thanks for reading.
Location: Seville, Spain
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